Slavery was almost abolished in 1784. The law didn’t pass by one vote!
Slavery was a hot topic in the early US all the way through the Civil War that was fought to end it. However, many people don’t know that slavery could have ended as early as 10 years after the United States was founded.
In 1784, Thomas Jefferson wrote a bill and submitted it to the Continental Congress that would have outlawed slavery for any new states admitted to the Union and would ban it outright by the year 1800.
The bill was taken up by the congress and it failed to pass by one vote. What’s sad about this is that there was an absent representative from New Jersey that would have tipped the scales.
Read more about this bill and Thomas Jefferson’s involvement in ending slavery at the source.